Bring back the picnic baskets - and I want a balloon

 My husband bought me a beautiful picnic basket from Wheel and Barrow for our anniversary- wicker with ceramic plates, real cutlery,  real glasses, green gingham cloth napkins and an inbuilt cooler bag.  So decadent for a family with two small children!  It got me thinking of how the tradition of picnic baskets seems to have faded a little with the introduction of cooler bags and eskies (or ice boxes if you're out of Australia). Of course they are more practical but nowhere near as romantic.  I wondered if you could still buy the traditional baskets anymore - and you can!  Look to etsy for genuine vintage baskets that you can fill up yourself with beautiful crockery and linen, or there are some lovely new ones in the old style - that usually come with a hefty price tag I might add!

Lindeman Wicker basket for two

Satara brown wicker basket for four from Peter's of Kensington

1900's wood picnic basket from Etsy

Vintage red picnic basket

Classic Redmon Picnic Basket from Etsy

Mid-century woven wicker basket on Etsy

Vintage Sunjoy picnic hamper

And if you want the vintage look but without the stress of potential broken plates and cups - go paper.

Vintage afternoon tea paper plates

Cake plates

Robert Gordon Barista paper cup  set

Tea Party floral paper plates

Sunshine moment....

The next thing you are going to see absolutely took my breath away when I saw them in the latest Inside Out magazine.  So a breathless sunshine moment.  They are by a Czech designer called Boris Klimek, and in Australia you can get them from Hub Furniture from $205 each.  And yes, they are real working lights. Have you seen anything more beautiful for a child's bedroom?  I want one.  Or lots.

Kids Birthday Party Ideas - Spider Party

Ever since my little boy Oliver saw the spider "smash" cake in the 2012 Donna Hay Kids Issue, he wanted it for his birthday.  He never wavered, despite my not so subtle suggestions that he may want something different because I was fairly doubting of my ability to make such a cake. His birthday is on the 21st December, and at the beginning of the month I decided to accept my fate and get on with planning a spider orientated birthday party - not as easy as I thought!  Lots of Spiderman and Halloween related invitations and decorations, but not much plain spiders.  Oh no  - I had to make something myself! Luckily, I found a great tutorial for a paper cut out spider web and put a cute little pom pom spider in the middle with the party details written around the edge - not high end stationery but adequate!

Once again Jordan Fearney from Oh Happy Day came to my rescue with some decoration ideas - actually, just one really huge decoration.  A spider pinata.  Although time consuming really easy, and really effective - and so much fun!

I did mine in a rush so it wasn't as robust as I would have liked, and I didn't think it would hang very well, so it guarded the DIY burrito bar instead.  To make it you need a  36 inch ballon - I got one for about $4 from a local party supplies shop and actually blew it up using my own lungs despite the staff telling me I would need a compressor! The same shop had some balloons with spider prints on them that I bought as well.

 I couldn't even find party favour bags and once again had to rack my brain.  I eventually went for red and white striped Paper Eskimo bags and found another tutorial for cut out paper spiders.

I filled them up with the lollies from the inside of the cake.

And finally the cake.  Not exactly like Donna's  - it is supposed to have a head and body but my head kept getting cracks in the chocolate so I gave up.  And I didn't want to use bendy straws for the legs like she did so I went to my local Asian grocer and got some coconut Pocky sticks instead and used melted chocolate to join them together.

And it was all worth it.  Oli was hitting the spider with all his might until it finally caved in and he was rewarded with a huge bounty of lollies.

Because it was a night time party I didn't do much "party" food, but if you were having it during the day some other ideas for spider-related food could be:

Red back spider sandwiches

Chocolate crackle spiders

Spider drink

If anyone else has hosted a spider party I would love to hear your ideas!

Kids corner - funky melamine plates

My kids have taught me many things, but one of the latest lessons has been that melamine can break - who would have thought?  So I have been on the hunt for some more plates, and I try my hardest to steer clear of licensed products as much as I can.  I am also not very keen on paying $20 or more for a single plate, so below is a selection of fantastic looking and reasonably priced kids' melamine plates.

Skip Hop Zoo

Eco friendly Bamboo dinnerware from Hard to Find 

Nana Clair's Gifts

Lark

Lark

Lark

Urban Baby

Love Mae

Baking day

I love quick, easy recipes that use everyday ingredients.  This is actually a Womens Weekly recipe for a crunchy chocolate slice that uses up the inevitable leftover weetbix crumbs - what's not to love really?

155g milk eating chocolate, chopped coarsely

125g butter, chopped coarsely

110g firmly packed light brown sugar

1 egg, beaten lightly

225g self-raising flour

70g weet-bix crumbs

Chocolate glaze

240g pure icing sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 tablespoons hot water, approximately

1.  Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.  Grease 20cm x 30cm rectangular pan; line base and long sides with baking paper, extending paper 5cm over sides.

2.  Stir chocolate and butter in small saucepan over low heat until smooth.  Transfer mixture to large bowl; cool 10 minutes.

3.  Stir in sugar, egg, sifted flour and weet-bix.  Spread mixture into pan; smooth surface.  Bake about 10 minutes.  Cool slice in pan.

4.  Make chocolate glaze.  Spread slice with glaze; stand at room temperature until set before cutting into pieces.

Chocolate glaze - sift icing sugar and cocoa into small bowl.  Add enough of the hot water to make glaze spreadable.

Yummo!

Wedding dreaming - dusky pink colour scheme

 So my sister has looked through all the gelato inspired wedding colour palettes and is leaning towards dusky pink  instead of multiple pastels, inspired by what these brides have done.  She is still sticking with the idea of letting each bridesmaid choose her own dress - I think the result will be beautiful and I've taken great delight hunting around for things that will suit her colour scheme.

1. Angeleye dress
2.Modcloth Strawberry iced tea dress
3. Little Joe Lace Magic dress

4.  H&M
5. Modcloth A Shine of its Own dress
6. Lisa Ho
7. Raxevsky
8. Ted Baker

Clockwise from right: Pink rose and macaron petit fours from Bubble and Sweet; mini jar candy favour from Etsy; fabric bunting from Etsy;  custom shoes from Etsy; bridal clutch from Etsy; wedding guestbook alternative (guests sign the hearts).

Etsy

Minted

The Wedding of my Dreams blog

Hitched

Can't wait to find more things as well as see what dresses the other bridesmaids find!

Teardrop campers

Came across the cutest campers in the world the other day - good for a rustic but very romantic honeymoon maybe?  Am I the last person in the world to find out about these or are others delighted for the first time?  I want one - just don't know where I'd put the kids!  Most definitely a sunshine moment.

Click here to see the full article and some more pictures.

Wedding dreaming - gelato colour scheme

Emmaline Bride

My sister has started thinking about the colour scheme for her wedding next December and I couldn't resist doing a bit of image research for her.  She told me "gelato" which made me think of soft pastels or even bright summer colours, romance, elegance, vintage and simple beauty.  She would also like her bridesmaids to be able to choose their own individual but complimenting dresses.  Here are some of the beautiful gelato bridesmaids and bouquets that I found.

Spearmint Wedding

Love my dress